DIY: How I built my own super macro rig for less than $250

Last year I bought a macro lens for the summer—just a normal one with 1x magnification—and I immediately found myself in a beautiful and mesmerizing world of minuscule flowers and bugs. I found that in macro photography, you don't have to travel to beautiful places to take beautiful photos—you can just walk around in your backyard, and discover a whole new world. Also, you don't have to wake up at 4 AM to catch the golden hour...

This year, however, I decided I wanted to take things to the next level. I wanted a super macro lens with 2x or more in magnification, so that I could take closeup portraits of ants and bees. I started Googling around for the right lenses and soon discovered that there are only a couple of them out there. The best known is the Canon MP-E 65, but it costs north of $1,000. There is also a 2x macro lens from Venus Optics, but it's still $400 for the lens alone... and then you need to add some kind of flash setup.

I thought this was way too much money to just try super macro photography, so I decided to look around for cheaper solutions.

That was when I discovered this excellent article on a Swedish site. It describes how you can build your own super macro rig with cheap parts off Amazon or eBay. This build works with any Canon EF compatible camera, meaning most Canon cameras and also mirrorless cameras with adapters. After some browsing, I was able to find all the parts on Amazon and I ordered them.

The rig is based around the Canon 40mm f2.8 STM lens. This lens is excellent for this purpose as it is very cheap, small, light, sharp and has beautiful bokeh (possibly more beautiful than the Canon MP-E 65). For this particular setup, the lens is mounted reversed to get more magnification using a Meike reverse adapter. The adapter, in turn, has a cable that allows you to keep control over aperture despite having the lens reversed.

You will need a 52-58 mm step-up ring to fit the Canon 40mm with the Meike reverse adapter. Then, if you put an extension tube before the Meike adapter, you have a super macro lens! Just add more extension tubes for more magnification.

I have found that 36mm of extension tube is my sweet spot—it gives me 2.3x magnification, meaning that the subject will be 2.3x bigger on the sensor than it is in real life. So a bug that is 10mm tall will cover all 24mm of a full frame sensor.

The rest of the parts are the flash and parts needed to mount it in a way that puts it as close to the subject as possible. You should also try to make some kind of diffuser, as shown in the video.

See the video up top for detailed instructions, and scroll down to see some sample photos. The parts can be put together in a few minutes, as shown in the video.

Lastly, a small tip for shooting super macro insect shots with this rig: use a slow shutter speed, such as 1/40s. That way you will get a lot of color and light in your photo, making it more interesting and beautiful. Don't worry about sharpness, the flash is a lot faster than 1/40, and it will make sure to freeze your subject in most situations.

Micael Widell is a photography enthusiast based in Stockholm, Sweden. He loves macro and nature photography, and runs a YouTube channel around these subjects. You can also find him on Instagram and 500px.

For Nikon the Zoom-Nikkor 28-50mm f/3.5 AI-S only weighs 250g, and it can be reversed, while retaining manual aperture. The reverse-ring weighs only about 60g, for a total weight at about half your setup, and it gives you a macro-zoom range of 1:4 - 3:1 :)

Gotta be careful when dragging the shutter to expose for the background. Take a look at the antenna at the top of the frame -at 1/30 of a second I was close enough to the ambient exposure to record some movement. Came out looking like a shadow:

Great shots! This is a pretty neat set up you've got here, but there may be some simpler low budget options for 2X macro out there. Personally I took a chance with the Chinese made Venus (laowa) 60mm f/2.8 2X macro and never looked back. It set me back about $300, but was well worth not having to screw on and unscrew extension tubes to find the right magnification. As an added bonus, it focuses to infinity and works passably well as a portrait lens. Of course, zoomed in to 2X, you definitely need some external light-- I went with a $50 Chinese-made Andoer LED ring flash which seemed to do the trick rather nicely.

Just a note on the Meike MK-C-UP electronic reverse adapter. I've noticed before that Meike tends to make a production run of devices, but once sold out they are not manufactured any longer. Meike used to make an automatic helicoid extension tube for Canon, but as soon as it was sold out, that was it. It appears to be the same with the Meike MK-C-UP reverse adapter. There are practically none left on eBay UK, and only a few left from other suppliers at very high prices. There is a similar Novoflex device but it is much more expensive. In other words if you want this adapter you better grab one quickly.

I used to reverse mount an old FD mount 50mm to my dSLRs. Works with an EOS to 52mm adapter (no wired adapter needed). In order to get the aperture ring to stop down, you have to engage the mount mechanism, which was easy to do with a rear FD lens cap with a hole cut out (works as a lens shade too!). This setup also works well with tubes.

Have you people ever heard about Thomas Shahan?You won't believe when you see his camera ans lens setup for macro photography. The hole set is less than $250!!https://www.youtube.com/user/terserBy the way the photos above are AMAZING!.

Thank you for sharing. I knew his video from a couple of years ago. Now his equipment became even more simple - but occasionally with a stacking approach included. Very nice video. And as additional equipment just a distance ring for lets say 20 $ and a reflector for 5 $. Beautiful images!

Yes, Thomas Shahan is another one of the best photographers and a great communicator. You are right that the reverse lens approach he uses is potentially much cheaper. An old manual reversed wide-angle can get you really high magnification for not very much money at all, with just a reverse adapter and some manual focus extension tube rings. Just look for a 50mm, 35mm, 28mm, or 24mm manual focus lens, which can be got for not much money.

However, it should be noted that this approach will not give you auto stop down focusing. Therefore you are going to have to either focus at the taking aperture with a dark viewfinder, or open up to focus and manually stop down which is impossible handheld with flash.

Very good. It's worth mentioning here that the article linked to is by John Hallmen, one of the best macro photographers in the world. I've found that Google translate does a great job with this blog with only the odd word it can't translate.

Anyone who is interested in this article may be fascinated with another article by John, where using a similar set up to this, but with the Canon 24mm f2.8 STM + a small CCTV lens John has created a relay lens set up, a type of high magnification fish-eye lens, which produces images only this type of set-up can produce. Just pop the link into Google translate to read in English.http://makrofokus.se/blogg/2016/9/22/diy-makro-fisheye.html

"...the Canon 24mm f2.8 STM + a small CCTV lens John has created a relay lens set up, a type of high magnification fish-eye lens, which produces images only this type of set-up can produce"

Yes close-ups at extreme wide angle are often impressive, because the low relative background blur allows good interaction of the subject with the environment. Mind some DSLR fisheyes do reasonably high magnifications at close focus (Nikkor 10.5) or can be hacked to focus a bit closer (Samyang 8), and the Laowa 15/4 macro is made for 1:1 anyway. Though finding a lens which produces good magnification at a useful working distance is indeed tricky, and the small C-mount lenses may also allow easier physical access and more room for light (some have mounted them on Pentax Q - an optical relay to FF or APS-C is a curiosity but may not be superior).

Interesting article. Something similar for Nikon would be a great idea, but as I already own the Sigma 105mm macro I'm not sure I can justify spending more money on a different lens system, even if it does have an increase in mag. Might go the Raynox route instead.

Not to worry. There are extension tubes and bellows for practically every major camera/lens brand. I paid $6 for a set of used extension tubes (13mm, 21mm, and 34mm) for Nikon. For close-up, I use a Ring Flash that cost me $17.00 new. I now have difficulty holding a camera steadily so I use a tripod.

I take macros with my various lenses: 50mm, 58mm, 85mm, 135mm, 18-140mm, 80-400mm with one or combination of extension tubes.

I mean, shooting high magnifications handheld with flash is much easier if you have auto-aperture with reversed lens as with the Meike thing. Not saying that it can't be done with manual aperture, but it is tough with moving subjects if you hardly see anything.

Hi _sem - I wonder if you look at the pictures on the link I provided. If you did, perhapa you did not noticed the RING FLASH. All the macro sample shots were taken with 18-140mm Nikkor DX lens mounted to a Nikon D5100 through a 31mm extension tube. The extension tube has all the electrical contact that enable auto-focus, auto-metering and auto-exposure in aperture priority, shutter-priority, program mode. Where the existing light is not bright enough, I mount the Ring-Flash to the lens. My choice of TTL Flash control or Manually setting the flash power output.

I have taken a 4X magnification shot of a Yellow Jacket about two feet from the front of my 80-400mm Nikkor mounted to a Nikon D800 through 65mm extension tubes. The shot was taken without a flash on a bright summer day.I do not like to take hand-held macro shots. I do not like to take macro shots of moving subject. Very difficult for me to attain spot-on focus of a moving object.

No problem, you can do macros anyway you like. Just saying that the reversed-wide-angle approach is quite convenient at high magnifications, especially with auto-aperture which lets you aim easily and even hunt moving subjects (surely it is not easy). With a small wide-angle lens, the setup is small and convenient for lugging around, and even the pop-up flash with an ad-hoc diffuser may be useful. The extension-tube approach is easier at moderate magnifications, but with longer extension for increasing the magnification the working distance tends to shrink. Reversing the lens tends to work around the working distance issue.

I prefer to use the macro lens, or the bellows, depending on the situation at hand.I also use the macro tubes on my Canon and on my Sony gear, with Canon EF and FD adapters on the Sony E-mount.

I got the bellows several years ago, and it was a combo purchase with a 75mm lens made for macro/closeup photography. A very sharp lens.

Since distance and focus adjustment is manual (using the bellows), the process is a bit slow, but high precision.For quicker action, I use the macro lens or the extension tubes.

For light, I just use a Cree XML-T6, powered by a 3.7 volt, 18650 Li-Io, 6000 ma/h, which provides a lot of lighting, and the battery lasts for a very long time (weeks, for light use). One needs to be very careful directing (aiming) the flashlight.

I don't shoot much of "true" macro anymore, but plenty of closeup relying on zooms.Somehow I don't bother with shooting insects anymore, aside from some exceptions.

In fact this is a bellows-like approach, and an automated one. With a relatively short focal length, not much extension is needed for high magnifications, so extension tubes are okay. It would have been nice to have short continuously-adjustable extension though.

You need either a Canon or Sony body since his setup depends on the Meike reverse adapter, which transfers all automatic funktions by wire.A Leica or Nikon will not work because there are no automatic reverse adapters.

I find it interesting that such a slow shutter speed has been used for these shots.

I’ve had limited success when trying to mix flash and natural light like that. The flash might freeze most of the movement, but an insect's waving antennae still end up with a dark motion blur when I use 1/100s, let alone the 1/40s recommended here.

Bright point highlights on the subject can also end up smearing into little lines if there’s a lot of movement, e.g. a bug on a leaf that’s blowing in the breeze. I've seen that even when using my camera's maximum 1/250s flash sync.

It's not clear to me why his technique/gear would produce better results at slow shutter speeds...

Maybe it's slow to sync the flash, and maybe effectively it's the duration of the flash that determines the capture duration. Maybe some of his bokeh then is the blur of sunlit objects whose reflected light is being continuously collected.

Yes, I know that using a slower shutter speed lets in more ambient light. What I'm asking is how to avoid blur while mixing that ambient light with flash.

With a bright background, even if I shade the subject so that it's primarily being lit by the flash, I find that any movement results in a dark blur (like a shadow at the edge of the subject) against the ambient light.

For example, I took a sequence of shots of a spider in a web wrapping up its prey. The sky behind it provided a bright background even when using f/16 or f/22. Almost all of the early shots were blurred when I left the shutter speed at 1/100s, and even after raising it to 1/250s there was some smearing against the background where its legs were moving. The only way to get consistently sharp shots was to change the angle so that the background behind it was dark.

@SteveY80.Yes, I have this issue also. I am now using a high speed sync flash (Sony HSS).If there is a lot of movement I shoot at 1/500 and up the ISO a bit.However, quite often I try to underexpose the bright background , so that if there was no flash everything looks dark. I will use the flash to light the subject. In that case ambient light does not play much of a role and movement is invisible. When getting close to 1:1 you will lose quite a bit of light and setting F22 will usually create a dark background so that the subject is mainly lit and frozen by flash. You can even put a ND filter to hold back the ambient exposure as long as your flash is strong enough to light the subject. I like to make subjects stand out from the background.Some examples:https://www.flickr.com/photos/janwestrik/22489721815/in/dateposted/https://www.flickr.com/photos/janwestrik/22515824686/in/dateposted/

I agree with Steve, 1/40s is quite long in the world of macro. You can use a tripod to eliminate camera shake (although insects typically won't wait around for you to get the perfect composition), but the insect moving and wind etc. will all contribute to blur at 1/40s. With that amount of ambient light coming through, the flash won't be producing that much power to be the dominant source and so won't freeze the subject. My quickest shutter speed is 1/200s and this still won't guarantee a sharp image sometimes.

That's my experience too. I Shoot hand held with an MP-E65 and typically use 1/200th second. To avoid black backgrounds you either raise the ISO or make sure there is a leaf of something to reflect some light back.

Is your flash set to minimum power? A flash set to 1/125 or 1/64 (or what ever is its lowest power) as well makes the flash duration the fastest possible. It ain't just that you use fastest sync speed, but you need very fast flash durations.

@Tommi K1My diffused Nissin i40 flash wouldn't sufficiently illuminate the subject at its minimum power. If I did use such a low power I'd have to open up my aperture and increase ISO, and then the flash wouldn't be the dominant light source.

It isn't the flash's ability to freeze movement that's the issue. In fact, I find that even a relatively high flash power like 1/8 will usually keep the subject sharp. The problem is with the mixing of ambient light and flash illumination at a slow shutter speed.

Even if the subject it in shadow and reduced to a silhouette without flash illumination, any movement against a bright background during the exposure still results in a dark blur. Freezing the movement with a quick burst of flash doesn't fix that.

Nicely done. Yes, there are many ways to go beyond 1:1, as was frequently done in film/manual focus days (see also https://photonius.jimdo.com/macro/). Maybe some of that knowledge got lost in the digital area. I guess the key here is when Meike etc. released the automatic adapter to control a reversed lens about a year (?) ago. Before, only a below/adapter from Novoflex was available, though already for quite a while.

Nice photos, but there are lots of cheap ($10-$100) old manual lenses that, either forward or reversed, work very well on a bellows up to about 5:1. It's easy to get a bellows for $20-$50 and a plain reversing ring for under $10. A suitable ring flash is about $30 (and you can block parts of the ring if you wish creative control of the lighting). Not really a big trick to this.... BTW, mirrorless works much better for this partly because of the focus aids, but also because EVF brightness is still fine stopped down so you can see the actual DoF (OVFs get unusably dark).

It’s interesting to see how many different macro options people come up with, all of them producing good results in the right hands.

Personally I prefer using Raynox close-up filters on a telephoto zoom rather than reversed lenses. They provide more range of magnification (switch between a shot of the whole insect and a close-up of its head just by zooming) and significantly more working distance at high magnification. I can also quickly remove the filter to use it as a normal telephoto (for opportunistic shots of larger subjects).

One thing I’ve struggled with is lighting the subject well with flash. Big diffusers provide soft light, but they can be impractically bulky, or block too much light and stop the flash from freezing movement.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that Micael Widell has really solved that here. Moving the flash close using the arm has helped, but there’s a noticeable hotspot on the shiny back of both of the ladybirds/ladybugs.

Nicely done. Yes, there are many ways to go beyond 1:1, as was frequently done in film/manual focus days (see also https://photonius.jimdo.com/macro/). Maybe some of that knowledge got lost in the digital area. I guess the key here is when Meike etc. released the automatic adapter to control a reversed lens about a year (?) ago. Before, only a below/adapter from Novoflex was available, though already for quite a while.

Fine samples! (disagree with some comments, try to make it better!)For Canon CROP format shooters: A nifty fifty (50 mm f1.8) new or used is reasonably priced. Add a M...e ring-type flash ($90 + shipping and shoot like a pro!), then some reasonably priced extension tubes - you're on, in the 1X-2X game!Expect using manual focus lot of the time, when hitting: Rewarding! Using f16 +-, with some experimenting, getting darkish backgrounds in bright dayligth, or f18 for dark.

This works for any camera system with any other or same system lens. The reverse adapter adapts filter threads to a bayonet. So you can use the Canon lens on any Nikon if you feel so inclined. In the 80'ies I used a Minolta 135 mm F2.8 reverse mounted lens on Minolta bellows with a big Metz CT45 flash. Calculations were easy: the reduction in light was metered by my Minolta even with reversed lens and I used the same attenuation of light to calculate the flash intensity needed. (non-TTL flash). Exposure had to be precise on unforgiving slide film. That was hard. Nowadays it is easy.

Many of them are very low quality. The first set I bought had broken electrical contacts. The second set had a lot of inner reflections and no way of applying adhesive velvet, as there was no surface for it. The third set I bought, which I am recommending in the article, is of good enough quality if you ask me.

I've gone a completely different route for a Canon S120 I have - I designed a system that allows me to mount a Marumi 200, a Raynox 250 and a Raynox 150 on a homemade extension tube I made from a plastic beaker. This screws onto an adaptor on the S120 and means I have a pocketable macro rig that produces pretty nice results. I have a thread about it over on the Macro forum if anyone else has a compact camera and wishes to take it to the limit. The last photos from today show the results from all three lenses in a stack - the 250 only arrived on Sunday, but it's the last piece of the jigsaw for what I want. I still have AF (if needed) and it shoots pretty well hand-held or with the help of a stick for an armrest.

Other alternatives are to add a Raynox DCR250 or a Canon 250D to the front of a standard, or macro, lens. Note Canon do the 250D in two different filter threads and there is also a 500D (choice depends on focal length).

On a compact camera you can have a lot of fun combining the two. (I did that a long time ago with a Canon G7 and a lensmate adaptor.)

If your are even more pressed for money, use an old manual lens (helios 44 or similar, can experiment with focal length) and reverse mount it on extension tube. Total cost for generic camera ~50usd. Beware that you get really short working distance and fixed magnification. Zooms can be fun to experiment with :)Edit - live view and metering help a lot. Flash is a must (as is a diffuser). Exposure time is mostly irrelevant.

Great article. I am not familiar with this extension tube and reverse adapter but how do the focus and aperture control on this rig work? Can you still use autofocus? Also, what is the advantage of using a reverse adapter instead of just longer extension tube.

You can control aperture as usual from the camera. Focus will not work as the lens is reversed. Autofocus is kind of futile in macro photography anyway. Your hand vibrates quicker than autofocus can work. With this setup, focus will be fixed around 4-5 cm in front of the lens, so you need to move the lens to the correct position. See it as having a fixed lens instead of a zoom, but in the macro world. The advantage of a reversed lens is that you get much higher magnification with a smaller setup. You would need to add A LOT of extension tubes to get the same magnification if you didn't reverse the lens.

Focus is locked a fixed distance in front of the lens. Remember that end of the lens normally is next to the sensor so the focal point of light passing through isnt variable. This is the weakness of reversing lenses, short working distances.

Bangs for bucks wise, these are some of the best macro shots I have ever seen as far as detail and dynamic range is concerned. The only other time I can remember seeing anything this good from a sensor is from a A7RII.

Hi, author here. Yes, in theory you can get 2x with a normal 100mm macro lens and extension tubes. But you would need around 100mm of extension tubes, which makes the whole setup very front-heavy and unwieldy.

I think so, but that would not address the lighting issue. (Of course, you could adopt the technique he used in the video to save some money.)

The video, though, is not aimed at people who already have the macro lens and the extension tubes. It's aimed at people who do Not have these, and still would like to play around with macro photography. But at an investment of <$300, rather than >$1,000 bucks.

One of the things I love about many types of photography is the clever ways people invent to address different shooting situations.

As such, I really enjoyed this video/article. Macro is not something I've done in the past. But, I can still appreciate the clever work-arounds that were done.

Similar quality results? I'd say better quality results with a good dedicated macro lens. Honestly, I'm not impressed with the above samples, I've seen better with compact super-zooms. However the article stresses on the low budget solution.

FWIW, I have a 90 mm 1:1 macro and with 52 mm worth of extension tubes I get about 1:1.7 magnification, according to test shot and https://www.kielia.de/photography/calculator/ . So if you want to know the total tube length you need for given magnification, play with the calculator. Although according to the ISO the camera selected, I lost half the light with that 52 mm of tubes.

This approach is most useful for higher than 2x. Just with extension tubes, the working distance shrinks with extension, eventually reaching nil, while a reversed lens focussed correctly has the working distance equal to the flange distance (and likely more when the sensor is closer then the MFD position).

Hi, author here. Thanks for your kind words. It isn't as hard to focus this as one might think. Due to the construction with a reversed lens on fixed extension tubes, your point of focus will be fixed, about 4-5 cm in front of the lens. All you need is a steady hand and some practice. And you need to accept that 9 out of 10 photos will probably be out of focus. So simply keep your hand as steady as possible and then take a lot of shots while doing a calm rocking motion towards the subject – and likely one of the shots will have focus in the right place. An aperture of around f10 is good, as it doesn't give too much diffraction, while still giving a lot of depth of field (which in this context is a couple of millimeters.. :)

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